So lately I have been having these relatively frequent flashes of perfection, they always serve as a reminder of what is possible and where I am now in relation to that. A few times recently it happened when I was playing Elden ring, for those who know it’s a pretty difficult game and it can get somewhat tense at times, albeit in a very fun and stimulating way. But nevertheless that undercurrent of stress or tension to whatever degree gets in the way of the possible enjoyment and appreciation.
And so a few times I experienced this flip, from this fun but slightly tense ambience to one of utter perfection. Then the game is just as difficult, but there is only enjoyment and appreciation at the fact that I get to do it all in the first place.
All of sudden nothing matters in the long term, “will that boss kill me and I loose all my runes?” this no longer matters because it is the magical quality of being here in the first place and doing this business called being alive which is precious beyond compare.
When these flashes happen they serve exactly as reminders, it’s like the universe is going “look you have got yourself into a dead-end again, stressing over ‘what will happen’ when this perfection is all there is”.
And I notice it is the same with everything else, I was just studying some BJJ material and the same procedure went on, ‘I’ got all wrapped up in this quest, still fun, still exciting, but some kind of an undercurrent of stress there.
And it’s almost like I don’t realise this undercurrent is there until it is removed completely, then all of a sudden the slate is wiped clean and I am here, having a magical time learning how to choke someone with this new technique.
There is no stress, no concern about ‘what will be’, no need to control anything in relation to some ‘big picture’. And I find I am just as effective at carrying out whatever quest is in front of me, but now there is only enjoyment and appreciation left at getting to do it in the first place.
And it seems it is all related to no longer having a need for this ‘big picture’. This is what allows such enjoyment and appreciation, it is delighting with gay abandon, like Richard wrote - no longer saving myself for some special time or place. It seems the ‘big picture’ is the realm where ‘I’ play out ‘my’ fears and battle for ‘my’ security, and so ‘I’ can never fully enjoy and appreciate being here now.
It’s interesting because as much as the experience of perfection is just as fresh and delightful every time, it has now gone from a ‘wow’ to an ‘of course’. As in of course everything is perfect, of course I know this, of course I am this body, of course ‘I’ am but a phantom.
I went to the shops this morning to buy some tobacco and walking back to the car ‘my’ very core faded back for some time, again it was utterly delightful but there was this ‘of course’ more than the ‘wow’ dominating the scene.
It was a very smooth and stable experience, it was the simple joy of being a body, unencumbered by any ‘being’ inside. Then from that position of being utterly unencumbered anything and everything could be delighted in, non-stop. Rather than some blissful state it is a freedom to delight, as in now that the shackles are off I am free to delight. It is such a silent contentment also, not something that I would need to shout from the rooftops, but rather this perennial contentment at being alive.
Driving home I was still very much in a magical land but with ‘me’ kind of phasing in and out. I remember looking around at the colours, it has been raining here recently and the grass near the road was such a deep and lush green, it was like the whole world was an oil painting. But again there was this sense of ‘of course’, as in of course only the sensate world genuinely exists, of course all of this is actually here.
It is so funny that now this seesaw is constantly going, I’m constantly zipping from ‘you gotta stress about the big picture!’ to ‘oh man there is only enjoyment and appreciation left’. It’s like an instant shift where what ultimately matters shifts from that which is ‘out there’ to that which is immediate. The funny bit is that they are both kind of fighting it out for primacy. There is this pull towards investing in something ‘out there’, some thing which promises eternity, and then there is the pull into a world where the immediate is the ultimate. It’s like a battle between instinctual security seeking on one hand and delighting with gay abandon on the other.
So the question seems simple and right in front of me. Do ‘I’ allow this body to delight with gay abandon, to only enjoy and appreciate this magical world OR do ‘I’ choose to continue carrying the burden of ‘being’ and for what? What objection do ‘I’ still have which keeps ‘me’ carrying the burden? Like @claudiu wrote, where I am experiencing from right now the only objection seems that it feels dangerous to proceed into perfection, it is not a specific thing but rather the very force of ‘my’ being.